'Man Who Killed Halloween' still haunts holiday

'Candy Man' still haunting HalloweenFather's poisoning of his son gave trick-or-treat a new scare

Published 5:30 am, Friday, October 29, 2004

Timothy O'Bryan's name may have faded from popular memory, but 30 years ago this Sunday his death shocked the country and earned the culprit the nickname "The Man Who Killed Halloween."

The 8-year-old Deer Park boy died Oct. 31, 1974, after eating trick-or-treat candy laced with cyanide. Within days, his father, Ronald Clark O'Bryan, stood accused of staging the crime as part of a life insurance scheme.

With his wife testifying for the prosecution, O'Bryan was convicted and sentenced to death. Dubbed the "Candy Man" by fellow prisoners, he was executed by lethal injection in 1984.

Halloween has lived on. But not the way it was.

The case horrified parents and helped usher in an era in which carefree costumed trick-or-treating has given way to X-rayed candy bags and tightly controlled Halloween parties and festivals.

The decades-old idea that depraved strangers are targeting children with tainted Halloween candy, however, is more fiction than fact, says a sociologist who has studied the phenomenon for 20 years. University of Delaware Professor Joel Best said he has yet to find a case in which a stranger deliberately poisoned trick-or-treaters.

"This is a contemporary legend that speaks to our anxiety about kids," Best said. "Most of us don't believe in ghosts and goblins anymore, but we believe in criminals."

Thirty years ago, after Timothy's death, the idea of a madman poisoning children with Halloween candy was all too real.

"We were all shocked that someone would kill their own son, their own flesh and blood, for a lousy ... $40,000 life insurance policy," said former Harris County Assistant District Attorney Mike Hinton, who prosecuted the case.

O'Bryan apparently was willing to go further, passing the poisoned Pixy Stix to at least four other children, including his 5-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. Miraculously, officers were able to retrieve the remaining tampered candy before any other children ingested it.

'Shivers down your spine'

An 11-year-old boy who was given one of the tainted Pixy Stix was found asleep in bed later than night, cradling the tube of poisoned candy in his arms. He had been unable to pry out the staples O'Bryan had used to reseal the plastic container.

"He didn't have enough strength to get it open," Hinton said. "It just sends shivers down your spine."

O'Bryan's wife, Daynene, filed for divorce after the trial. She remarried and remains in the Houston area. The family declined to discuss the case, offering only a brief statement issued through their attorney:

"October 31, 1974, was a tragic night that changed our family forever. Tim, son and brother, was violently taken from us. Our family, like all others that have experienced a loss, has a hole in it that cannot be filled with anyone or anything else. Tim touched many individuals in his short eight years of life and through his untimely death. We choose to remember Tim's life, not how or by whom he was taken. We look forward to seeing him at the gate."

The O'Bryan family had spent Halloween 1974 at a friend's home in Pasadena, where Ronald O'Bryan volunteered to escort the children on their candy-collecting rounds.

He later told police that someone at a darkened home, who only opened the door a crack, had handed him five Pixy Stix — oversized plastic tubes filled with candy powder — for the children in his group.

It was crucial to O'Bryan's plan, detectives said, that only his son eat the tainted treats. Back at the friend's house, investigators said, O'Bryan leaped over a coffee table to prevent his friend's 8-year-old son from eating one of the candies.

After returning to their home in Deer Park, O'Bryan told Timothy he could choose a single piece of candy before bedtime. Prosecutors said he urged his son to try the Pixy Stix.

The boy gulped down a mouthful of the powder, then went to bed after complaining that it tasted bitter. Minutes later, Timothy ran to the bathroom and began vomiting, police said. By the time he got to the hospital, he was dead.

Initially, O'Bryan was of little help to investigators. Accompanying police as they searched the Pasadena neighborhood, the 30-year-old father was unable to remember any details of the house where he got the poisoned candy or the person who gave it to him.

O'Bryan's story abruptly changed on his third trip with officers through the neighborhood. Detectives said he suddenly remembered the suspect was a white man and pointed out the home.

Investigators quickly cleared the homeowner, and O'Bryan's plot to reap a windfall from his son's death began to unravel.

Curious about poison

A few days after Timothy was buried, an insurance agent had called police to report that, unknown to his wife, O'Bryan had taken out policies on his two children shortly before Halloween.

Detectives also learned that O'Bryan, deep in debt, had been boasting to co-workers at Texas State Optical that his financial health soon would undergo a remarkable recovery.

O'Bryan also quizzed one of his customers, a chemist, about poisons. He seemed particularly curious about potassium cyanide and asked where it could be purchased, the customer told police.

Investigators later scoured the family home, where they found O'Bryan's pocketknife with traces of plastic and powdered candy stuck to the blade.

The jury took about an hour to convict O'Bryan and only slightly longer to hand down the death sentence.

Despite his findings, even professor Best admits he was not immune to trick-or-treat fears, though he said he made it a point not to closely examine his own kids' candy hauls.